Two professors – Rahamath Tarikere and Chandan Gowda – recently had a conversation in Kannada about philosophy, culture, resistance and syncretism in some traditions in the state.
Tarikere worked as professor of Kannada literature at Kannada University, Hampi from 1992 until his retirement in 2021. His extensive publications, which include literary and cultural criticism, travel writing as well as short essays on wide ranging matters, have earned him the Central Sahitya Akademi Award (2010) and the State Sahitya Akademi Award (1993, 1998, and 2000).
Gowda is Ramakrishna Hegde Chair Professor at the Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru. His areas of interest include social theory, modern Kannada literature and Indian political thought. Apart from academic writings, he has translated numerous Kannada fiction and non-fiction works into English. He is a columnist with Deccan Herald.
An English translation of the conversation, abridged and edited, is below.
CG: You’ve recently started working on an autobiography. What kind of an effort is it? What are you trying to create?
RT: As you know, ‘I’ plays a very important role in autobiographies. So I’ve been thinking of how to dispense with it. And, by doing that, I want to bring to the forefront the environment that moulded me. When a Muslim or Dalit writes an autobiography, readers expect to find the distinct experiences of the community in it. But mine wasn’t a very distinctly Muslim family. I grew up with different communities. I learnt my first lessons of secularism from my father, from the streets where I lived. I grew up among people who spoke different languages and the Muslim community was blended with the other communities. Kannada came to us as naturally as Urdu. I want to convey that environment in my book.
CG: Your father was a blacksmith and he also had a farm. Your mother did embroidery and also taught the Quran to girls. How did your interest in Kannada literature evolve in this milieu?
RT: My mother would go to people’s homes and teach the Quran to children. And she also loved to watch the films of MGR and Rajkumar. She knew Tamil and her friends were Tamils. They weren’t two separate worlds, they went together. Since my father was both a farmer and as well as a blacksmith, he had ties with different kinds of farmers. My mother was a very good story teller. I was the first to learn the alphabet in our family. If anything came wrapped in newspaper, I would read from it. And my wonderful school teachers cultivated an interest in literature. Also, there was a library in front of my high school. It had all the books I needed. My interest in literature didn’t evolve purposefully. I think it grew naturally in that milieu.
CG: Most of your research and writing happened at Kannada University, Hampi. How was its institutional environment?
RT: When I had to move to the university, I did wonder about moving to a new region. To add to it, there was no teaching work there. It was wholly a research job. And the year I moved… it was the year 1992, chaos and agitation were everywhere in the country. And when I went to the university, there were no buildings there, not even a chair to sit on. But there were big dreams all around. The first VC, Dr. Chandrashekhar Kambar, had sowed those dreams. Going to Hampi made me less ignorant. Because some of the most amazing cultural worlds of Karnataka are found in North Karnataka. My professional research obligations and the institutional aim to create knowledge inevitably took me to North Karnataka, which became my karma bhoomi from the point of research.
CG: In a recent article, you say that your research style is to collate freely and you go on to say that it is like how your father, as a blacksmith, melted different scrap metals to make a sickle, a knife, the way your mother stitched a quilt with pieces of cloth. What is this method, Rahamath?
RT: Our research mostly looks at inscriptions, handwritten manuscripts, architecture, sculptures. A big question on our minds was: an institution wants to create knowledge, but where is this knowledge? This can be seen in three ways. One, it resides among the people and we need to collect it. That’s only a half-truth. The second way is to say that it’s with us and we have to impart it to the people. That’s not entirely true either. The third way that we found was to see that people have an understanding, they have experience, and since they are from different occupations, trained in different arts, they also have amazing knowledge. People are illiterate but not uneducated. They have rich knowledge, be it in music or in theatre. So a modern scholar like me had to collect it, examine it and present it as knowledge. It was not about teaching people, or seeing that they had all the knowledge, but about taking their understanding and using my modern understanding to create a new understanding. It was definitely a task of collation.
I have travelled to around five hundred villages and worked there. I did a lot of research during the late hours because the mystic songs, Muharram songs are sung at night. It was mostly the literature associated with music that I engaged. In the literature we find in printed books, music, costume and dance will be missing. So, looking for them… travelling to different places to collect them to collate them, to connect them, And then to digest them blend them, and then create something new, I have seen it as a method of collating freely.
CG: You have, from early on, shown an interest in counter culture. And your other works that followed, be it about the Sufi, Natha, Shakta, Aroodha Sects, you say that all of these that these traditions boldly confront and reject the dominant culture. You also say that these sects have deeply influenced Karnataka’s social, political and spiritual life. What kind of influence is this?
RT: I think Western rationalism lacks the qualities of hospitality. The qualities of negation, refutation, and resistance are heavily present in it. Dissent and protest are part of all schools of Indian philosophy. Different schools of philosophy criticize their rival views before presenting their thesis. Even in Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and other religions as well, in their respective historical contexts. The elements of resistance are heavily present in the literature of the sharanas. So, many philosophical schools and religions in the world have taken birth through resistance.
In my understanding, the schools that grew outside of Western rationalism, within an Indian rationalism and show Indian ways of thinking, like the Natha, the Sufi, the Shakta, Aruda, Avadhuta sects, they include both a search for how to create fine human beings and how to create a fine society and also a clarity about the things that are better left behind and that are to be opposed. These Indian philosophies are not just textual entities, they are not texts that are discussed in a philosophy class. They are a part of people’s lives. Thousands of people in Karnataka have embraced the order of Gurus. They will be farmers, weavers, carpenters, tailors. I want to understand these worlds. This is about grasping the Indian intellectual cultures, and a search for Indian alternatives. I think the modern movements may find inspiration from these sources. That our own tradition can offer resources and strength to them hasn’t been recognized.
CG: But these efforts would have proceeded from modern intellectual grounds. What challenges did you need to face due to this fact?
RT: A main academic challenge is that our philosophy departments never viewed them as Indian philosophies Because they are found among the common people and these people are the labouring classes, the lower classes residing in rural areas. If you want to meet a tattvapada singer, you’ve to wait until evening, because he works during the day. These philosophies are a part of people’s customs, their celebrations and festivities. The philosophy found in these spheres never found research attention. The philosophy departments in Karnataka did not analyse philosophical writers like Bendre, Kuvempu, Ananthamurthy, Tejasvi, Lankesh.
CG: It has been many years since you started studying counter cultures. From The Sufis of Karnataka to now, when we consider your thinking on how these worlds need to be understood, has there been a change in your approach?
RT: Initially, I was a student of literature. There was no way I could study philosophy and religion. But the situation during the year 1992 in India bewildered me. What was I to research? My interest in literary research had come to decline, because… In the name of religion, if the country could generate such disorder, so much violence. Was there a cure for it in our communities? in our traditions?
These thoughts led me to study the Sufis. If the disturbances of 1992 hadn’t occurred in India, I would probably never have thought of studying these sects. The despair that I felt on a personal level. Did this country need to endure this violence? Or does a remedy to this exist in our tradition? That’s how I began. I used to travel all around India. The pro-people’s philosophical streams have never flowed separately. They’ve been together, with each other.
In India today, communities are getting polarised and religions have stopped conversing with each other like enemies, they were ready to wage a war. A big lesson lies for us in the worlds of these saints. The Guru Granth Sahib is special because it includes the compositions of various saints of India. There’s Ramananda, Ravidas, Kabir, Jnanadev Punjab’s Bulleh Shah, Gurunanak, Baba Farid. I saw that an organic secularism which is very close to the values these saints created and lived by.
CG: The secularism of our Constitution asks the state to stay equidistant from all religions, whereas the values of these saints were about coexistence and creatively, freely redesigning their traditions.
RT: Religions and philosophies coexist with each other, which involved a sharing it’s possible to coexist without sharing and to influence each other. An example that I can think of is the philosophy that gained a lot of momentum among the Sufis of Karnataka and India is the Anal Haq philosophy. Mansoor Al-Hallaj who live during the 10th Century in Baghdad. It has been said that Mansoor Al-Hallaj took inspiration from Advaita’s idea of Aham Brahmasmi for his Anal Haq philosophy.
So, it’s not merely about co-existence. It’s about sharing among the like-minded. In Sufism, for example, Nizamuddin of Delhi, Moinuddin Chisti of Ajmeer, Bande Nawaz of Gulbarga are Chishtis. They wear ochre robes. I have seen that as part of this kind of friendly co-existence. We have seen many fakirs and Sufis interacting with the yogis of India.
CG: While you researched these sects, you met several mystics, many folk artists. Apart from your research concerns, you were also very curious and interested about them, almost as if they were an extension of yourself. How have you viewed your relationship with them?
RT: Our colonial mindset turned these people into objects and bearers of information. When you look at some photos of anthropologists, these people look like objects, to aid in understanding society, and not as humans primarily or as knowledgeable persons. They weren’t treated as highly evolved beings and saints. If you go about looking for people’s philosophy. They’re not just people, they are philosophers. They’re practicing philosophers. I travelled to meet a woman in Kolar, who had been ordained into an order of Gurus. She was away extracting the silk from silk cocoons. She returned in the evening, covered in sweat. But she had such a deep understanding… So, in all my books, I do not address them as informants, but as knowledge bearers.
So, my entire research is an outcome of the knowledge these people have given me. People primarily are knowledgeable. The knowledge could be spiritual or about their occupations: stitching chappals, theatre training, or singing. I have regarded them as my teachers. And since human relations are involved, even after my research is done, and the book is published. I remain in touch with them.
CG: You’ve travelled a lot during your research days in Karnataka and outside. You have called your new travelogue, Jerusalem, ‘Travel Reflections.’ How might travelling have shaped your thinking?
RT: Because it brought me out of the habit of book-based research completely. It asked me to go to the people, to travel…That gave me the opportunity to travel across India. And, travel is also my personal interest. My travels have seen three phases. First, the travels I did across rural Karnataka to gather knowledge from the people. Second…India is really a very beautiful country. In West Bengal, I had visited a hamlet called Kankalitala. It’s a little-known place. But the people there were very happy that someone from Karnataka was there to do research and treated me like their own. Really, the best memories of fieldwork are about how the people of Karnataka shared food, gave shelter and wisdom.
And then, gradually I started travelling outside the country, in Bhutan and Nepal. There are hundreds of travelogues on America and Europe. But on countries that have had a longer history of influence on us, like China, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan, there are hardly any on them. There have been so many cultural exchanges. So I started visiting our neighbouring countries in my second phase of travel. And then, to the Middle East. A prince in Istanbul faced the threat of getting killed by his elder brother. So then, with the help of a merchant, the boy’s mother sent him here. He is Yusuf Adil Shah, the first king of Bijapur’s Adilshahi Dynasty. With Turkey, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, and in particular, Iran, they seem always to be a part of our country. Sanskrit and Persian are of the same origin. So, I went to countries that are historically, culturally and religiously connected to India.
When I travel to any place, it’s like facing a mirror. See, we worship so many rivers but our rivers are not clean. But abroad, they don’t worship the rivers but keep them clean. The rivers in Bhutan are very beautiful. For critically analysing our culture, we can use the cultures outside our country as a mirror. And many times, we realise, when we go there, the distinctness of our social relations etc. We realise both our strengths and our weaknesses. To share these observations, I decided to call it ‘Travel Reflections.’
CG: You’ve written about film actors, festivals, culinary traditions…So, when you write for the common readers, is a different form of obligation at work? What sorts of constraint might you feel while writing these essays?
RT: Firstly, criticism and research reach very few readers. Whenever I felt I needed to share my understanding with a larger audience, I wrote in popular genres such as light essays, travelogues and the book on Ameerbai Karnataki. What we call popular culture in India, cinema and film music have not just entertained people but has also influenced their thinking. Films have dealt with numerous kinds of human suffering.
But our mainstream research in Kannada doesn’t give attention to cinema. It neglected professional drama troupes (aka the Company Theatre), then the film songs…I decided to work on Ameerbai to change this state of affairs. In fact, Ameerbai was not only a film actress. She took part in the national freedom struggle, she was dear to Gandhiji. And for the communities that sang and participated in temple culture, the professional drama troupes and cinema offered a certain liberation. At the time of India’s freedom from the British, these women started coming out of landlord patronage and the clutches of tradition in their villages to join the theatre companies and cinema that had taken on the form of an industry. So I got interested in working more on these fields that had fostered the thinking and tastes of the people.
Our research work does contribute to academia. But a part of it I feel should be shared with the general readers. It is a way of democratising scholarship. When we write for newspapers, our language, without our knowing it, becomes simple, becomes something else altogether. So, when we write for the masses, we find a new birth.
CG: You have a love for Hindustani music. You mentioned earlier that in our literary criticism, even in cultural criticism, music isn’t taken seriously, in fact, it has been kept out. What kind of a loss has this entailed?
RT: We shouldn’t forget that, in our tradition, Dasarapada, Tattvapada, Saval-Javab songs, Muharram songs, all of them exist in the form of music. Theatre songs and film songs are also in music form. Most of our literature has appeared in the form of music. But the music somehow got disconnected from modern literature. In my opinion, our texts are multi-layered. Speaking of his epic, Kumara Vyasa says it offers lessons in rule for kings, the essence of the Vedas for the Brahmins, lessons in diplomacy for the ministers, lessons in love for separated lovers and lessons in philosophy for the yogis. It is a multi-dimensional political text. So, we’re reading texts that carry multiple meanings in them. Even our rituals, fairs are not just religious events, trade activities happen there, drama troupes perform there, people sit together with their relatives.
That’s how our culture is. It’s multi-dimensional. Viewing it as one-dimensional is a very big mistake. To this day, I feel, as teachers of literature, we have to develop connections with theatre, cinema, painting, sculpture and with murals. If we lack an evolved taste towards them, we cannot become good teachers of literature. And our students need a good exposure to all these art mediums. If we confine literature to written texts, literature becomes very boring.
CG: In your current research on Karnataka’s Buddhist communities, including the Neo-Buddhists, what do you wish to understand. I mean, through what questions are you studying them?
RT: My idea was to study a few major philosophies that have shaped the lives of people in Karnataka: Sufism, Natha, Shakta, Aaroda, Avadhoota and Dhamma. I have seen the Dhamma – the Buddha used this word – from two angles. One is historical, and another, its present-day form. A large Buddhist community existed in Karnataka in the past. Buddhist statues and stupas are being found all across coastal Karnataka. Buddhism was a large presence in the Gulbarga region, during the time of Shatavahanas. Many Ashokan inscriptions have also been found. At one point in time, a large Buddhist community appears to have existed in Karnataka. Buddhist writers, some argue, were among the earliest writers…
CG: Is it hard to find historical records about them?
RT: Literary records are a bit hard to find, but a few hypotheses are being made. For example, in Kavirajamarga, the list of predecessor poets found there might include Buddhist writers. But, testifying to the historical presence of Buddhism in Karnataka, a number of monasteries, stupas, statues, shrines are found. With that background in mind, I’m now working with different communities. And not just Dalits, because without being initiated into the Dhamma, lots of people follow the Buddha. They don’t contact the monks, they don’t even go to monasteries, but in their minds, in their ways of thought, they are Buddhists. They are a sizable group. I study them too in my work on the Dhamma sect. From G.P. Rajarathnam onwards, many Kannada writers have worked on Buddhism.
Our old writers were very secular. So I am interested in the sensibility found in their writings on Buddhism. Thirdly, I look at why the Dalits are drawn to Navayana Buddhism, the Dhamma favoured by Babasaheb. It’s not Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism exists in Karnataka. Navayana Buddhism has arrived as a liberation theology. The kinds of turmoil and celebration found in the families that have embraced it, I’m studying both of them. I travel to villages, stay in their homes, I talk to the women, children, monks, and men, and try to see how a new religion is proving a liberatory force in Karnataka. The Dhamma is a political force. It is also a social movement. This is what I’m studying.
CG: All the best for your research, Rahamath.
The conversation was transcribed and translated from Kannada by Chandan Gowda and Pranati A.S.